i am not your love song (your love song gone wrong)
by Nirav
Summary: in which cal is a girl, sarah is a problem, and felix doesn't take it well to have another family member in kira's life
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note**: there was a tumblr post. it sucked me in, because i'm a sucker like that.

this will probably never be finished.

* * *

Someone is pointing a gun at Felix again and he still hasn't learned how to talk his way out of it.

Sarah skids around a corner because that's definitely a shotgun barrel and surely Graham isn't still that-

Oh.

That's Callie.

"Shit," Sarah mutters, catching herself on the doorframe. This is worse. "Callie, hey, hey, put the gun down, come on."

"Sarah? What the hell are you doing here? " Callie bites the words off, her voice creaking with anger, and the barrel swings over towards Sarah. Felix, somehow, seems surprised that there's someone else who wants to shoot Sarah in the head. He really does never learn.

"Sarah, who-"

"Fee," she says loudly. "Fee, this is Callie. Callie, this is my brother Felix."

"What happened to your orphan sob story?" The barrel of the shotgun hasn't moved an inch, even as Callie's jaw clenches visibly. "You've got so much nerve, the last time I saw you you took ten grand and my brother's car!"

"You brought us to one of your marks' house?" Fee shouts, finally distracted from the gun still pointed at him, his attention zeroing in on a glare at Sarah and her attempts to edge herself between Callie's gun and his chest.

"Mommy, what's-"

Sarah grabs for Kira, yanking her out of the line of fire and behind her protectively, holding her there with one tight hand behind her back while the other raises, open and empty and shaking, towards Callie.

"Oh, come on," Callie mutters, but she lowers the gun, unloading it easily. "Who is-"

"Callie," Sarah says quietly. "This is Kira. My daughter." She brings Kira out to her side, arm still locked around her shoulders.

Callie stares down at Kira, eyeline sweeping over fair hair and wide eyes and her fingers twitch, one after the other, counting years, until her eyes go wide and ricochet back up to Sarah's.

"She's- no way she's-"

"Hello," Felix says, loud and charming; timing, at least, he has mastered perfectly. He can't talk his own way out of gunpoint but he's always had the instincts to protect Kira. "Felix. Foster brother. Avowed pacifist. Sarah, why don't I take Kira upstairs?"

"Right," Sarah says, still flushing under Callie's stare.

"Okay, monkey, up we go." Felix swings Kira up into his arms- she's almost too big for his lanky form now, but God knows he'll keep picking her up until she's taller than him- and shoots a look, dark and insistent, at Sarah over his shoulder.

Callie, to her credit, waits until they're upstairs and the click of a shutting door follows their footsteps, before speaking. "Is she…?"

"Yeah," Sarah says quietly. "Where is he? I thought this was his house."

"Where- Jesus, Sarah." Callie shoves a hand through her hair and barks out a laugh, dropping down to sit at the kitchen table. "My brother died in a car accident two years ago."

"He-what happened?"

"Drunk driver," Callie says with a shrug. "Ran a red light, t-boned, Graham died on impact."

"Shit, I- God, Callie, I'm-"

"Oh, you're sorry?" Callie's hand is still on the shotgun, knuckles pale with the force of her grip. "Because you can't scam child support out of him now?"

"No! Shit, Callie, that's not- I didn't think anyone would be here, we just needed a place to lay low."

"Who'd you screw over this time?"

"One night, Cal, I swear, and we're out of your hair."

"It's not like there's anything left for you to take," Callie says after a pause. "One night." She pushes up to her feet and points the unloaded gun at Sarah with one hand. "Whoever the hell was in my bedroom is sleeping on the couch."

"We didn't go in there," Sarah said quietly. "I was on the couch anyways."

"Good," Callie says over her shoulder. "It's basically a brick." The bedroom door slams behind her, echoing off the hardwood, and Sarah slumps against the wall. She doesn't move until the creak of Felix's footsteps on the stairs reaches the kitchen.

Master of timing, as always.

* * *

The next morning, Sarah wakes before sunrise- the couch really is a brick; her whole body protests when she stretches- to a silent house. The door to Callie's bedroom isn't shut entirely; Sarah peers through the crack to where Callie is wrapped around a pillow, the sheets kicked half-off the bed. Sarah's fingers tighten into a fist, because this really was a shitty idea and Callie and Graham have every right to hate her and regardless of Kira or lingering guilt or-

The shotgun is propped against the wall between the nightstand and the headboard, a box of shells left open on the table, and Sarah clenches her jaw against her own thoughts and moves on towards the kitchen.

Callie is the next one up, wandering out to where Sarah's sitting on the edge of the back deck with her knees pulled to her chest and coffee cooling in her hands.

"So nice of you to save me a cup of my own coffee," Callie says. She's wearing glasses and blinking sleep out of her eyes behind the lenses and it takes off some of the edge to her words as she sits. Her posture is the same as Sarah's but she settles six feet away, the distance intentional and clear. Her sweater is too big, cuffs rolled twice and still trailing past her wrists; with her tousled hair and the slow, sleepy blinks behind her glasses, it's almost easy to forget the shotgun she pointed at Felix last night.

"We were in a bind, Cal." Sarah sets her coffee down, her body curving towards where Callie sits, but she grips the edge of the deck in both hands to keep herself still. "We just needed a place to stay."

"Is she really even his?"

"Timing's right," Sarah says quietly. "I didn't know until after I left, but I wasn't with anyone-" Her words cut out for a moment, wilting under the sharp snap of Callie's eyes towards her, but she heaves out a slow breath. "He was the only guy I was with, she's definitely his."

"Did you come here to drain more money out of my brother? Reappear with some cute kid asking if he's her dad and take another ten grand?" There's an intent for venom in her voice but it's softened by the rounded edges of sleep. Callie always was slow to wake up.

"I swear I didn't. We'll leave today, we just-"

"Needed a place to stay," Callie finishes for her. "I got that part figured out." She takes a slow sip of her coffee, staring out towards the woods. "So what kind of shit are you in now?"

Sarah's fingers clench tighter to the deck and she swallows against the dryness in her throat. "We're going to leave today," she repeats. "Now. We'll get our stuff and go."

"Right, okay." The familiar edge is sliding back into Callie's voice. "Run away, like you do."

Sarah bites down on the inside of her cheek and pushes herself up to her feet. Exhaustion weighs her down, shoulders rounding a few inches closer to the ground than normal, but she turns to go anyways. She's halfway back inside before Callie's voice cuts through the morning quiet once more.

"Hold on, wait, wait a sec." Callie climbs to her feet as well, pushing her hair back and rubbing at one eye tiredly. "I'm not going to kick this little kid out on the street, not just because you screwed us all over. You can stay another night, if you need to."

"Thank you," Sarah says, and her body sags with relief and fatigue. "Really, thank you."

"Just don't steal anything this time. Including my coffee." Callie brushes past her, pausing only to take the coffee mug from Sarah's hands and dump the rest of it into her own mug before pushing the empty mug back into Sarah's hands. "And Jesus, you look like crap, go back to sleep."

Sarah leans against the door and watches as Callie takes a swallow of the coffee and disappears out to the shed behind the house. She doesn't look back to where Sarah stands, watching, and Sarah doesn't move until the stairs inside creak under Felix's feet.


	2. Chapter 2

Felix _left_. He said goodbye to Kira and hiked off down the road, leaving Sarah with Kira and Callie and the lingering ghost of Graham in the center of that unfortunate triangle. Add in the hovering danger of cops and scientists and preachers and, really, this situation has reached a point that Sarah is entirely too tired to manage.

"Hey, monkey," Sarah says, hitching her mouth up into a smile as she settles on the bed with Kira. She slots a glance over towards the door, making sure it's closed, and takes a deep breath. "I need to tell you something."

"Is it about why Uncle Felix left?"

"A bit, yeah." Sarah smiles and it's honest- because Kira is smart, because she's so much more than Sarah's ever been- but it still stretches tight against the tension in her jaw. "Uncle Felix had to go take care of Auntie Alison, you know? She's got a lot to deal with, and he's going to help her.

"But he also left to give you and me and Callie some time to talk." Sarah swallows against the tension building in her throat, but that just moves it down to her chest, then her stomach, and God, she's just tired of throwing new people into her daughter's life. "Kira, Callie's brother, Graham, he's- he's your dad, and I wanted you to meet him, because I thought you should know him, but-Kira, he died."

It hurts more than it should to say aloud, a knot settling in her gut and twisting up into her ribcage. She had never loved him, had lied to him and taken his money and run- had all but taken his sister from him, if the wide-eyed betrayal written across his face when he walked in on them had been at all honest- but he had been a good man.

"He was in a car accident a few years ago, and Kira, I- I'm sorry it took me so long to come home, and to get myself together, I'm so sorry. I never wanted this for you, I wanted you to have a better life than me, with a family."

It's not until Kira pops up onto her knees on the mattress and presses her palm against Sarah's cheek that Sarah realizes she's crying. She pulls her daughter closer, wrapping around her small form and burying her face in Kira's hair.

* * *

After she's put Kira to bed for the night, Sarah makes her way downstairs. She's managed to avoid Callie for most of the day- or, really, Callie's mostly been out in the workshop, doing who knows what, and Sarah's spent the afternoon sequestered in the spare bedroom with Kira- but as she comes down the stairs, Callie is settled into a chair in the living room with a book and a beer, biting at one of her fingernails absently. She glances over the top of her book, one eyebrow quirking up in Sarah's direction.

"She's out like a light," Sarah says quietly. "Took her awhile, she misses Felix, but-yeah." She rubs a hand over her eyes, too tired and too worried to pretend there isn't a lanky Felix-shaped void at her side. "She wanted me to tell you goodnight."

Callie doesn't say anything, but hums some noncommittal noise and ambles out of the room. Sarah grinds her teeth together and slumps against the wall, tallying how much energy she has to funnel into another argument, but then Callie reappears with a fresh beer, popping the lid and handing it to Sarah.

"Thanks," Sarah mumbles. She picks at the label around the neck, staring openly as Callie curls back into her chair. It's a different brew than what Graham kept when he was there.

"So now what are you gonna do?" Callie asks, neutral and quiet.

"I don't-"

Lights from a car in the driveway slice across the living room, cutting off Sarah's uncertain response, and Callie is out of her chair immediately, pointing her to the wall between the windows and out of sight. She grabs her almost-empty beer and steps outside to where the sheriff's car is idling.

"Hey, Dave, how are you?" she says easily. "It's been awhile."

"Oh, you know," he says. "Getting by, do what you gotta do."

"What brings you up here? Little late for a social visit."

"Got a report of some folks stealing from Bill's store, back closer to town. A mom and kid, cleared out with a bunch of food. A truck was stolen back outside the city and someone called in seeing it around here, thought I'd swing by and see if you'd seen anything."

"Nah, can't say I have. It's been all quiet up here."

The sheriff eyes her, level and silent, for long moments, and Sarah's fingers dig into her own thigh to keep quiet.

"You know, I do what I can to leave you alone up here, Cal, don't even ask about that little weed patch you got growing in the back."

"Yeah, I appreciate that," Callie says. Her voice doesn't waver, and Sarah closes her eyes against the her own nerves. "I'd help you if I could, but I haven't seen anything."

"Okay," Dave says after a moment. He smiles and raises a hand, almost like he's going to pat her on the shoulder, but then it falls back to rest on his gun belt. "You have a good night."

"You, too. It was good to see you."

"You too." He dips his head in goodbye and ambles back to the truck. Door open, he pauses, and glances back at Callie. "Brittany and I stopped by the cemetery the other day, left some flowers."

"I saw," Callie says, and now, finally, her voice wavers. "They looked really nice, I appreciate it."

"Take care, Callie," Dave says. He climbs into the truck and backs down the driveway. Inside, Sarah slumps against the wall, legs weakening and chest aching.

It's a long minute before Callie comes back inside, and it's not until her footsteps hit the porch that Sarah moves. She shoves off the wall and grabs her duffel bag from its spot on the couch, throwing sweatshirts and socks into it haphazardly.

"Hey, what- what are you doing?"

"I shouldn't be here," Sarah says, not looking up from her work. "I shouldn't have put you in this position, you shouldn't have to lie to the cops. We're leaving."

"What, now? It's the middle of the night, Kira just went to sleep!"

"Yeah, well, she's used to it," Sarah says. She shoves the last of her crumpled shirts into the bag and starts folding Kira's neatly. "It's probably better to leave now anyways."

"Sarah, don't just run again."

"I'm not running out on _you_. Jesus, Callie, I'm not that person anymore, but I'm in some real shit."

"So going off in the middle of the night on no sleep because a local sheriff came by is a good way to deal with it? Come on, don't be an idiot. At least wait until morning and figure out where you're going to go." Callie pulls her up to her feet, away from the suitcase, and Sarah yanks her arm away, taking a long step back and shoving shaking hands through her hair. Her back collides with the wall behind her, hard enough that it would have shoved the air out of her lungs even if Callie wasn't staring at her with that honest wide-eyed look she'd always had eight years ago.

"Don't run, not like this," Callie says quietly. She's closer, suddenly, somehow, and it takes a Herculean effort but Sarah manages to meet her eyes and level her breaths, even under the weight of Callie's gaze. She's too close now, from too many steps that Sarah managed to miss out on, gaze darting down to the uncertain line of Sarah's mouth and back up to her eyes as she leans in and this is a bad idea, a terrible idea, the worst one Sarah's had since she picked up Beth Childs' purse the first time. It's a mistake to do this again, to let it happen as it did years ago, but Callie is here, dark hair and dark eyes and a mouth that settles automatically into a smirk when she isn't glaring at Sarah, and Sarah moves without meaning to.

Sarah is hesitant even as she moves forward but Callie isn't, one hand curling around the back of Sarah's head and the other pushing her into the wall when Sarah's mouth finds hers. Sarah pushes forward when Callie bites down on her lip, a little bit angry and a little bit desperate, but Callie's height presses her back against the wall, pinning her there easily.

It's still a terrible idea and Felix would throw her out a window if he knew she was making this mistake again, but Callie's tongue is in her mouth, familiar and confident like Sarah never left and Sarah's leg is hooking around her hip and- well, as long as they don't wake Kira up, it can't be the worst thing she's done recently. It's not like she's sleeping with a monitor or a morgue attendant, after all.


	3. Chapter 3

Once upon a time, sex with Callie was easy. They were so young, Callie gliding through her last year of university and Sarah scrabbling through her own manipulations in search of an easy score. Graham was sweet and idealistic, a bleeding heart environmental science student with an eye for business and a twin sister who could write code in her sleep. Sex with him had been sweet but marred by the machinations of her own goals; sex with her, though, had been a mistake, a rockslide that Sarah skidded down once, twice, a dozen times because even when they were wrapped up in Callie's guilt and Sarah's lies, it was too easy to stop.

Once upon a time, it was easy. Now, even in the moments after she talked Sarah into staying, it's a fight. Callie's edge in height pins Sarah against the wall with eight years and a stolen car, ten grand and a lost brother, crushed in between them and informing the bite marks on Sarah's throat and the bruises blooming on her wrists. It hurts- not the sex, because even at her harshest Callie has kindness built into her bones- but the cynicism brimming in her eyes and her utilitarian movements, the miles of difference from how she used to touch Sarah. It had been easy once, even when guilt shadowed Callie's eyes, but this is something else.

They make it into the bedroom, Callie walking Sarah backwards through the door and shutting it, quietly enough that it wouldn't wake an exhausted eight year old but loud enough to be definitive, before she manhandles Sarah onto the bed and tugs her jeans the rest of the way off. Sarah reaches for her, time and again, but Callie shoves her hands away, pinning them to the bed or the headboard, over and over.

Callie uses her up, and Sarah lets her- because she deserves it, because she wants it, because she had betrayed Graham and Callie both but even after Kira it was never Graham who made it so hard to finish the job- and God, with how many people and governments and organizations there are chasing the right to her body she should take some exception to how overwhelmingly Callie has claimed it, but she's too tired and the sex feels too good, pleasure roaring up her spine, for her to muster any indignation.

Eventually, finally, sometime in the early morning when the forest outside is waking up even if that sky isn't, they stop. Sarah sprawls on the bed, sweaty and sensitive and exhausted, half-suffocating through the pillow under face but too worn to care. Callie's hand sits, tired and heavy and possessive, on Sarah's spine, sweaty sticky fingers pressing between the vertebrae and following a nonsensical pattern up and down her back, up and down, up and down. Outside the bedroom window, rabbits rustle through the scraggly bushes that Graham had planted and tended to once upon a time.

"Everything back then," Callie says after a long while, her voice quiet but still too loud for the room. "All of it was a con, right?"

Sarah rolls her head to the side just enough to where she can see Callie past the pillow.

"Not all of it." The words scratch her throat and taste foreign on her tongue, as if her body's forgotten how to speak.

"What was and what wasn't?"

Sarah closes her eyes as her stomach twists around itself. "Callie, don't-"

"Tell me. Don't pretend like you don't know you owe me at least that much."

Sarah rolls onto her back, wincing when the bruising bitemark over one shoulder presses into the sheets. "He was a mark," she says. She measures her words, slow and careful, and keeps her eyes on the ceiling. "He was a perfect mark. Smart and kind and young and naive, with a great idea and enough money to be worth the time but not enough to be on the lookout for a con.

"He was a mark," she says again, and looks over to the wary- not sleepy, not angry, not desperate, but worn- expression on Callie's face. "He was my mark, but you were my mistake."

Callie doesn't say anything, rolling instead to mimic Sarah's posture.

"I've never- when I was on a mark, I've never even looked at anyone else, much less slept with them," Sarah says. "Not before you and not since you. You were a wrench in my plan."

"I'm terribly sorry," Callie says flatly. "And I don't believe you."

"I'm not lying to you, Cal. Believe what you want, but that's the truth. I would have stuck it out with Graham, I was going to take him for everything and I could have, but you- you were a complication, and I couldn't be around you and take everything from your brother. So I took enough to stay on my feet and I left."

"But you did," Callie says. "You took everything. You broke him, you know that? He wouldn't look at other girls for months, years. He wouldn't even speak to me for six months. He lost his business and his girlfriend and half his savings and his car, all in one day, and I couldn't even help him- Jesus."

Sarah reaches out, hesitant and slow, and slides her hand over where Callie's clenches at the bedsheets.

"Don't," Callie says, but there's no venom, no anger to give her voice an edge; she shoves ineffectually at Sarah's hand, but Sarah holds on anyways.

"I'm sorry," Sarah says eventually.

"Don't," Callie says again. She shoves away what's left of the blankets and pulls her hand free from Sarah's, climbing to her feet. "Just don't." She kicks her way through the mess of discarded clothes and blankets on the floor, making her way to the dresser and banging through the drawers.

"You used to be shy." Sarah props herself up on her elbows and watches as Callie dresses.

"Yeah, well." She tugs a t-shirt on, cotton covering the fingernail marks on her shoulders and arms from when the sheets hadn't been enough for Sarah to hold onto. "I used to be a lot of things."

She walks out, shutting the door behind her and leaving Sarah to flop back gracelessly onto the bed. The door to the back deck clangs open and shut, and Sarah sighs to the ceiling, counting steps as Callie clomps out to the workshop.

Later, when she's found the energy to pull herself out of bed and into the shower, she catches sight of the marks on her back. An archipelago of bruises and bitemarks parades up her back, the pattern Callie was tracing so repetitively earlier.

* * *

The hot water draws Sarah back into her exhaustion after not sleeping all night, and it's barely past sunrise when she emerges from the shower, so she halfway remakes the bed and curls back under the blankets. She sleeps fitfully, but at least she sleeps, the hour of rest better than nothing.

There's coffee brewing when she wakes up again, the scent drifting through the small house. She fiddles halfheartedly with her hair as she dresses, trying to cover the livid bruise on her neck, but she gives up after only a few tries. There are people hunting them down; Kira can deal with Sarah having a hickey.

Then again, maybe not. She grabs the bulky sweater Callie had been wearing the night before and slides into it, tugging at the collar.

She pulls up to an abrupt stop in the doorway to the kitchen, because Callie is at the stove, coffee mug in one hand and the other steadying Kira as she stands on a kitchen chair, poking a spatula under a half-cooked pancake.

"Careful, okay, you don't want it to- there you go," Callie says, smiling into her coffee as Kira successfully flips the pancake over. "Look at you, Iron Chef, good job."

"Morning," Sarah says, leaning against the door.

"Hi!" Kira says excitedly. "Look, we made breakfast!"

"You sure did," Sarah says. "This is great, yeah, now you can make breakfast every morning, right?"

Kira shoots her a look that's pure Felix, incredulous and offended, and Callie laughs outright.

"That's right, don't take any of her crap," she says with a wink at Kira, holding her hand out for a high five. She drains the last of the coffee and pours herself another mug, then points back at the stove. "Eye on the prize, kiddo, don't let it burn."

"Is there any more coffee?" Sarah asks, tugging at the cuffs on her sweater.

"Kira drank it all," Callie says with a smirk. She takes a slow sip and pats Kira on the head when she protests the accusation.

"Right," Sarah says quietly.

Callie rolls her eyes and holds her mug out to Sarah. "Sugar's in the cabinet," she says, jerking her head over towards the other side of the kitchen. "Still black with sugar, right?"

The lingering distrust, the or was that a lie, too? hangs in the air.

"Not everything changes," Sarah says.

"Mhm." Callie's attention is already back on Kira, steadying her as she pours out batter for more pancakes. Sarah settles at the table, sipping on her coffee to watch Kira make the pancakes. One of Callie's hands remains at Kira's back, steadying her, the whole time.


End file.
